A man accused of helping gang-rape a Kentucky woman in the Slidell area in 2008 had sex with the woman in the back seat of a car, but she was a willing participant, he told St. Tammany Parish jurors Thursday.

Then, Elroy Cooper caused a stir in the courtroom -- he alleged that detectives probing the woman's allegations forced him to lie about details of that day.

Cooper is being tried for aggravated rape along with Joshua Reed, 24, of Slidell. They are two of five men charged with the alleged crime.

Chance Michael Ross, 20, also of Slidell, pleaded guilty Tuesday to the lesser crime of forcible rape in exchange for testimony against Cooper and Reed earlier this week. He is expected to testify later at the trials of Ralph Robertson and Jerrell Payton, both 19, who are also charged with aggravated rape.

Cooper, Reed, Robertson and Payton would spend the rest of their lives in prison if convicted. Ross is looking at between five and 40 years of imprisonment.

Cooper on Thursday told a jury that he and several men met the woman, then 19, on Oct. 26, 2008, in downtown New Orleans and invited her to smoke marijuana with them. They drove her to Slidell and took turns having sex with her in a home's driveway.

"She tried to kiss me," Cooper asserted. "It was consensual."

Later, the men drove her to Reed's trailer home, Cooper said. Though he did not, others had sex with her in a bedroom and bathroom, he said. He also claimed she shared weed with them and ingested pills.

The woman, who was in town attending the Voodoo Experience music festival, alleged in court that she was kidnapped and denied consenting to sex with anyone. She also disputed ever doing drugs with the men.

After the woman had Cooper and the others arrested, Cooper told police in a recorded statement played to the jury Thursday that he saw Reed wave a gun before having sex with her. That echoed events that Ross and the woman narrated to the jury earlier, but one prominent detail that Cooper excluded but Ross and the woman did not was that Reed threatened the woman's life while holding the gun before the sex.

However, Cooper swore under oath that the police forced him to say those things in an interrogation room after they had handcuffed him and pointed a red laser at his chest.

"(An officer) said, 'Don't move.' I was scared for my life ... and said what they told me to," Cooper said.

He wept on the stand. Women related to Cooper gasped in the courtroom gallery, sobbed and stormed out.

Judge Richard A. "Rick" Swartz retired the jury from the courtroom. He asked deputies to escort Cooper's relatives out to the hallway and ordered a recess. He met in his chambers with prosecutors Nick Noriea Jr. and Jason Cuccia as well as defense attorneys Stephen Yazbeck and Ermence DuBose-Parent, who are representing Cooper and Reed, respectively.

When the proceedings started again, Noriea got Cooper to admit that he did indeed see Reed hold a gun.

"I saw the weapon, but it was not shown to the victim," Cooper insisted.

Swartz adjourned for the day after Cooper's testimony. The trial is expected to end Friday.

Though Reed did not testify Thursday, Noriea and Cuccia did play for jurors a recorded statement that Reed made to deputies during the investigation.

They heard Reed deny ever having more than oral sex with the victim at the trailer. He also suggested he never showed the woman a gun but only spoke of one he kept at his place for protection.

Jurors also listened to Reed at least twice refer to the alleged victim as a "flipper," a word he defined as "a girl who would do anything you tell her to and like it."

"She was having fun," Reed alleged to police. "She was like, 'Damn, I'm into this.'"

Sheriff's Detective Keith Canizaro -- the state's last witness -- testified that he and other investigators eventually found numerous used and unopened condoms when they searched Reed's trailer. They also discovered bullets and a magazine for a semiautomatic pistol but never recovered the gun Ross, Cooper and the woman mentioned, which the woman described as a revolver.

While questioning Canizaro, Yazbeck pointed out that prosecutors did not call a physician to the witness stand to discuss any bruises, torn clothes or vaginal tears found on the victim that would be consistent with forced sex.

"This is supposed to be a rape," Yazbeck told Canizaro. "Didn't that make you wonder?"